


you can't be pure

by mornen



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Depression, Family, Fear, Gen, Loss, Love, One Shot, Separations, Tragedy, Worry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-13 00:14:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29517930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mornen/pseuds/mornen
Summary: Thranduil receives news that his son is joining the quest of the ring and then meets Legolas again after
Relationships: Legolas Greenleaf & Thranduil
Kudos: 27





	you can't be pure

In the pain of Thranduil’s heart there is a common thread: a blue cord like a vein holding loss together in names that he will never hear answered now. There are many. Names he spoke and that someone answered to. He knows how ‘I’m here,’ can be the sweetest sound in the world. He knows how silence can be the most cruel. 

He stares at the leaves; they are almost all fallen. Winter is not far. The leaves were golden when he bade Legolas farewell. He cradled Legolas’s face between his hands and kissed him, and he knew then it might be the last time he saw him, for danger was never completely inescapable. But Legolas is choosing to face a danger more terrible than words freely.

Elrond sent his people to speak to Thranduil; they gave him sad tidings. His child will leave to destroy Sauron’s ring, and that news smote his heart greater than the news of Sauron, of the Ring. 

He wasn’t entirely taken by the messages. Of course Sauron would have to be dealt with again, of course the Ring was found, of course the world would fall. Enemies greater than their power will always come, and the Great will look away. 

And of course Legolas would stand up and say I will face that. He is good and kind and full of love, and it’s bright in his eyes, and his smile is sometimes the only thing that Thranduil lives for. 

Legolas’s letter lies on his bed, and he only had the heart to read it once. Elrond’s he has read a thousand times. It’s sadder each time. But Elrond has a right to be bitter. And so does he. 

‘But you can’t let it consume you,’ Elrond has said when they’ve drunk too much, and Elrond has cried in his arms. It’s happened so many times. He’s cried over so much. He has a right to be angry. How could anyone hold it against him? Not even Gandalf holds it against him. 

But sometimes Thranduil lets it consume him. If just for a few minutes, if just for an afternoon, if just for a month. He can’t take it sometimes – the way his heart is a boulder in his chest and even the air grows too thin. 

He should be proud. Isn’t that what they say you should be? His child loves the world more than his own life: his child who grew up in the creeping shadows of Dol Guldur will fight those shadows for the freedom of strangers, for the freedom of those he loves. And Thranduil is glad of his courage, but that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t feel as if his heart has been ripped from his chest. 

Will he have to add Legolas to the list of names that will never again be answered? 

Will he never again hear the sweetness of What do you want? said without grace or esteem and a laugh after, so known to him, so dear. 

When you love with all your heart, there is the gamble that you will lose it. 

Thranduil sinks to the forest floor. It has rained long and hard for many days, and the ground is soft beneath him. His hands sink into it. He stares at the forest, seeing nothing, but a green leaf remaining still on a silver birch. 

*

Legolas is older when he returns. He has aged a thousand years, but his smile is still as gentle. His eyes are filled with pain. He holds onto Thranduil, and Thranduil strokes his hair and feels, for a moment, that he is holding a stranger. 

Then Legolas smiles at him again, and Thranduil stares down into his eyes, and Legolas says, ‘I’m tired.’ Thranduil knows the weariness he carries. 

‘I will not stay,’ Legolas says later when they are alone. Legolas trails his hand over the objects in his room as if they are stranger’s things, or the items left behind by a brother who has died, and he does not know what to do with them. 

‘Why not?’ 

‘I still have work to do,’ Legolas says, not looking at him. ‘And then… I wish to leave Middle-earth. I’m so tired.’ He turns to Thranduil, his face grave. ‘I must help them. They were so… 

‘They need more trees.’ And he smiles again, but his eyes are bright with tears. 

‘The elves are leaving,’ Thranduil says. 

‘And will you?’ 

‘I don’t know.’ 

‘You still love these woods,’ Legolas says. ‘And the vastness of the world – the wildness of the land. I do too. And I will see many things, but then I shall leave. I am tired.’ 

Thranduil takes his hands. This is not an end he thought he would see. He had thought it would go one of two ways: Legolas would die, or he would return to him. But now Legolas is giving him a third ending to the story, and Thranduil has nothing to say. 

‘I love you,’ Legolas says. 

* 

‘I love you,’ Legolas said. He has been gone many years. Thranduil cradled his face between his hands and kissed him as he bade him farewell. He watched the ship until he could see it no more. 

Sometimes he lets his grief consume him. He stands in the forest and watches the stars and the moon and the sun, and the leaves turn gold and red and fall and rot and turn to earth and feed the trees, and the trees grow tall, and it has been many years. The children of the men Legolas saved come to saw the forest down. Sometimes the bitterness consumes him: that he could not have undisturbed joy in the forest he loves. The eyes of the Great look away. 

In the pain of his heart there is a common thread: a blue cord like a vein holding loss together in names that he will never hear answered.

Legolas is one of them. He always will be, if he stays.

**Author's Note:**

> requested~


End file.
